It's interesting to note that of the 7 presentations selected so far, 2 are on HFM, 2 are on HSF, 1 is on FDM, 1 is high-level on EPM, and 1 is very techie-level on EPM. What we don't see are any presentations on Hyperion Planning or Essbase, the two best selling Oracle EPM products. I'm somewhat surprised they didn't preselect any in these categories.

There will eventually be 35+ presentations (not sure if this includes the vendor presentations or not) so I'm guessing this is just a temporary scheduling quirk. The deadline for abstract submission was December 15, and when the rest of the presentations are selected, we'll have a better idea of the product coverage of the conference.

With the exception of Eric's (which really doesn't seem to fit with the above sessions), all of the above also seem to be very introductory presentations. Again, I'm not sure if this is a temporary quirk or if it's the aim of the conference to have more beginner-level content.

Registration

We only have 2 months to the conference, and since the schedule's not posted yet, time is rapidly running out for people to determine if they want to go and then register to do so. To help make it easier to get approval in this short time frame, the nice people at OAUG have made the cost of the conference an affordable $495 (if you register by February 16). After that date, the rate goes up to $595 for what is basically an on-site registration rate.

You'll notice that the rate of $495 doesn't go up until a week before the conference. In my opinion, this is bad for the conference organizers, because they really won't have any idea of the expected conference attendance until a week or two before the conference. People will procrastinate until February, because they really don't have any incentive to sign up early.

Because people will be signing up at nearly the last moment, I expect attendance numbers to be minimal until February. Correspondingly, don't be surprised if the conference organizers get spooked when they see those very low pre-enrollment numbers and start doing things like offering discounts. Note that I have no actual knowledge that this will happen (I'm no longer involved with the OAUG Hyperion SIG), it makes logical sense.

If you want to be a kind soul and sign up now to give them a better idea of their conference size, stop procrastinating and visit this link:

They seem to be updating it very regularly. It's actually changed since the beginning of this week, so make sure you check it frequently. Assuming I get a presentation selected, I will be at "EPM Connection NJ," so if you're going, I'll see you there.